Page 50 of The Taskmaster

“There’s a lot of them out there,” he shot back, his harsh truth toying with my inherent guilt.

Suddenly, I felt exposed. Not only from the kiss, but the thought of what’d just happened. It was tumbling back into my psyche. Crashing into my brain like a wrecking ball about to obliterate my senses.

This hadn’t gone how I’d wanted. I was going to use the knife to force her to tell me the truth. To give me the information I needed and the names I’d chased for years. But I didn’t want anyone else to hear those truths. I didn’t want her to say anything that would drag me back to that darkness or shed light on my story. It was mine. I didn’t want to share it.

But Isaiah had said my name.

She knew who I was after that.

So, when he’d reached for the duct tape covering her mouth, I’d panicked. I’d silenced her forever. But in doing so, to save myself, I’d lost the opportunity to hear her secrets. She’d taken them to the grave. Secrets that I needed her to share.

Fuck.

This was a disaster of epic proportions, and now I was left with a bloody murder scene, and a body that’d be a nightmare to get rid of.

“I think you should go. I have to make things right,” I said.

My anxiety was spiking; I was so out of my depth.

He threw his head back and let out a long, exasperated breath. “Please stop saying that.” He let his head fall forward and pinned me with a determined stare. “I already told you, I’m going nowhere. We’re in this together. And judging from the finale you enacted, and the look on your face, I don’t think you’d planned for this.”

“Is that rule number five? Plan for any eventuality?” I shot back.

“Maybe. Perhaps I should make a list of rules just for you,” he said. “Like I said earlier, I could teach you a lot.”

“Would you laminate it too?” I joked.

“Sure.” He shrugged. “Make it wipe clean so you can take it with you next time and use it as a guide. That sounds like the sensible thing to do.”

“There won’t be a next time.”

“We’ll see.”

I glanced back at him, and the heated look on his face made me question myself. But I shook my head. Now was not the time to think those kinds of thoughts or even contemplate kissing him again.

That was a mistake.

A spur-of-the-moment, trauma response.

At least, that’s what I was telling myself.

“What do I do?” I whispered, trying to form a plan in my head.

“You wait here and don’t touch a thing. I have my van parked down the lane. I’ll go and move it, bring it closer to the house. I have everything we’ll need to deal with this.”

He was so self-assured. So confident. And I felt ill at ease. I didn’t like it. He had all the control here, and I had none. The last time that’d happened, it’d set off a trigger of events that I didn’t want to think about.

I didn’t want to put myself in that position again.

“How do I know I can trust you?” I knew it was a stupid question. He’d tell me what he thought I wanted to hear. But when he spoke, he proved me wrong.

“I don’t think you have much choice right now, Abigail. But I haven’t abandoned you, or done anything to make you think you’re in danger here, so that must count for something, right? I have her blood on me too.”

He was right about one thing; I didn’t have much choice. I could run away, leave the scene, but I didn’t want to leave loose ends and live my life in constant fear that this could come back to bite me in the ass.

What would my dad say?

My parents would be mortified.